Mijo

Okay, maybe he looks like me a little bit.

Hearts, swelling, breaking.

Outdoorsmen
Originally uploaded by riblet.

Lately, the love I have for this tiny family of mine has been hitting me like a ton of bricks.

Since I started working again, I feel like my life moves at break-neck speed. As soon as we wake up, we're trying to get out the door, and as soon as we come home, we're trying to get to bed. When I can stop amidst the madness and be present in the moment, it's so rewarding. My boys' gravity pulls me towards them by the heartstrings. And BOOM - my heart explodes, or at least it becomes arrhythmic (maybe I should see my doctor again about that). Loooove. These two handsome faces are what it's all about.

As Ira's language is developing more and more, the person he's becoming is falling into sharper focus. He loves to laugh. He loves to make people laugh. When I asked him last week, why his feet were so stinky, he said "I ate the pickles all gone and then I put my feet in the jar, mama." Hilarious! And he still loves his mother, thank goodness. Once he found that by singing "You Are My Sunshine" and replacing the lyric "dear" with "mom" will earn big smiles, clapping and hugs from me, he sings it all the time. It never gets old. He's such a love.

Though the worrier I am, I stay sure that my whole world can change in the ordinary instant. Take the call I received at work on Tuesday afternoon. My niece rang my cell, which she almost never does, her preferred form of communication being text. I answered and she blurted out "grandpa just died!" I'll tell you what happened over the next few seconds: my stomach tensed and sank into my feet. WHAT?! I panicked. My heart went nuts, I started sweating. WHAT?! I demanded for her to repeat it. "Grandpa Tony just died," she said. Oh my. I calmed a bit. I had panicked because she calls my dad grandpa and I exclusively refer to my dad as grandpa when speaking to her. Only to his face or to my sister, do I ever call him dad these days. In one ordinary instant, I thought my dad had died and it effing threw me into a split panic. It was terrifying. Of course I'm absolutely heartbroken to lose my grandpa, and I am so worried about my dad's own heartbreak, having lost grandpa Tony on the heels of losing my mom just a few months ago. I've been finding a lot of comfort in something my grandpa told my cousin just last week. He said "when I die, I'm going to die a happy man. I've had a long and full life." What a great gift of peace to leave his family with. Last Christmas, he gave Ira a bike. It was kind of a big present for Ira, we certainly didn't get him anything that big. But grandpa Tony really wanted him to have it. He was smitten with Ira, who also took a shine to his great grandpa. And he loved to buy the boys in the family their first bikes.

I spent some time with dad the other day, bringing him a container of fideo (a Mexican comfort food dish, kind of like a dry pasta soup) and an ear to listen. I mentioned this to some co-workers after returning to the office yesterday and when I told them of bringing my dad the fideo, they all nodded knowingly and agreed "Oh, yes fideo. That's what you do." If there is one nice thing I can identify about working in the unnamed public agencies I've reported to, it's that I finally work with other Mexicans. This is not statement in cultural loftiness, but it can be comforting to be understood on a certain level. This is especially true for me, having come from an entirely different kind of office culture. Tower was comprised of all manner of misfits, nerds and extroverts bound by a common love of music or movies. Though it was free and liberal, there were not a whole lot of Mexicans in a mix like that. It was kind of like a homecoming last Christmas season, as a certain number of my new public agency co-workers would cruise by my desk after the holiday and ask if I was sick of tamales yet. There's no question if I had made any, but rather how many I had eaten or taken home and if that was enough to carry me through to the next wedding or Christmas.

Family and food. It's all about that too.

Fuimos de vacaciones

A visit to the Motherland, catching up with family, swimming, sunning, seeing. Mazatlán was a total blast. No one got sick until the day we left. Me with a sinus infection (wash your hands!) and Leon with a vague sickness he would have died on the Oregon trail for.

Here's where we stayed:

Costa de Oro in the Zona Dorada. It was clean and the toilets flushed like real toilets. Plus, we had the freaking penthouse on a private floor, with KILLER views. Really, on the 11th floor, if you took a spill over the balcony, it's adiós dude.


Here's that killer view:

The chairs beach and poolside were amazing places to take in the view. We spent almost every day hanging out here.


And here's another view from the top:




We took these little cabs called Pulmonias everywhere:

They were fairly cheap, but once we learned to walk away from the prices we didn't like, they got infinitely cheaper.


With the negotiating skill finally refined, we ventured into the Historic District. Here's a little plaza:

Ira didn't want to leave this place. There was a pigeon skeleton stuck in some netting inside the dome. He found it endlessly fascinating. It was quite easily the high point of his vacation and his favorite story to tell at school when we returned.


Outside the Cathedral:

Ira and I taking a little rest.


Exploring the Historic District:



And there were excellent colors everywhere. I love México for that.













Check out these consumables:

Chocolate covered strawbs with jimmies.



A tepid, but tasty coconut.



Beer, in packs of eight. This is my kind of country.



Cool, cool, chelada.



The best tomatoes in the history of the world. Seriously. They were this red and juicy everywhere we went.


I can never get enough of this face:



And I would have paid this guy to follow us around all day playing Corrido de Mazatlán over and over:



Oh and, the sunsets were some of the best I've seen:

The end.

And life resumes

Unicorns!!
Originally uploaded by riblet.

I've been back from vacation for a few days, but I still can't quite get out of a vacation state of mind. Mentally, I'm still checked out in a deck chair, getting sun, sipping a cold brew and letting Ira climb all over me like a tiny, chatty monkey.

Ah, vacation was fun though and I'll do a photo post sometime soon.